"It's all right… It's all right, Patera."

Her head and face were swaddled in the sackcloth again; he touched it when she was near enough to touch, stroking her head as he might have stroked the head of any other child. "Do you think yourself so hideous, Olivine? You're not."

"I can't… I can't, Patera. Men-"

"Male chems?"

"Want me to when they see… Men want me to when they see me. So I try to look like one… So I try to look like one of you." The last word was succeeded by a strange, high squeal; after a moment he realized she was laughing.

The fifth-floor door she opened for him was five fingers thick, old and losing its varnish flake by flake but still sturdy. As he followed her into the darkness beyond it, he reflected that the room she called hers had surely been a storeroom originally. She snapped her fingers to kindle the bleared green light on its ceiling, and he saw that it still was. Boxes and barrels stood in its corners and against its walls, and metal bars, drills and files, spools of wire, and bits of cannibalized machinery littered the floor. He said, "This is where your father finished making you."

"Where we work on… Where we work on me." She had taken a pale figurine, a half bottle of wine, and a clean white cloth from some crevice among the boxes; unfolding the cloth disclosed the small loaf she had taken from the kitchen. She spread the cloth on the floor and arranged the other items on it.

He said, "You'll have to tell me how Silk sacrifices these things for you. We don't have a fire."

"The wine is the blood… The wine is the blood, Patera. The bread is the… The bread is the meat."

He began to protest, but thought better of it and traced the sign of addition over them, then looked up to see that Olivine was holding a book. "Is that the Chrasmologic Writings?"

"I keep it here… For you."

To his own surprise, he discovered that he was smiling. "I pointed out that we have no fire, Olivine. With equal or greater relevance, I might have said that we have no Sacred Window. But we can consult gods anyway, thanks to you, and perhaps they'll be in that book for us, as they are sometimes. Afterwards, I'll talk to you a little, if I may; then I'll sacrifice as you wish. Is that all right?"

She nodded, kneeling.

The Writings were small and shabby-the sort of copy, he thought, that a student might use in the schola. He opened them at random.

" `There, where a fountain's gurgling waters play, they rush to land, and end in feast the day: they feed; then quaff; and now (their hunger fled) sigh for their friends and mourn the dead; nor cease their tears till each in slumber shares a sweet forgetfulness of human cares. Now far the night advances her gloomy reign, and setting stars roll down the azure plain: At the voice of Pas wild whirlwinds rise, and clouds and double darkness veil the skies.' "

It was customary to observe a few seconds of silence when a pas sage from the Writings had been read; it seemed a blessing now, although it could hardly be called silent, so beset was it with swirling thoughts.

"What does that mean, Patera…?"

"I can't possibly tell you everything it means. The meanings of every passage in the Writings are infinite." (It was a stock reply.) "As for what it means to us here tonight-well, I'll try. It begins by telling us plainly that it concerns our immediate situation. `Where a fountain's waters play,' must refer to my bath, for which I thank you again. `There' presumably designates this palace, since I bathed here. `They rush to land' refers to your impatience, when you wished me to end my bath and come up here with you."

"The gods are mad at… The gods are mad at me?"

"At you?" He shook his head. "I doubt it very much. I would say that they are offering a gentle and somewhat humorous correction, as a parent corrects a beloved child." He paused to collect his thoughts, glancing down at the book. "Next is, `And end in feast the day.' You want me to sacrifice this bread and wine, and the day has indeed ended, which assures us that our sacrifice is what is meant. `Feast' is probably ironic. We have no animal to offer-no real meat. We should eat a little of the bread, of course, so that it will be a shared meal. Or at least I should. And-"

"Drink some wine… Drink some wine, too," she suggested. "You always do… You always do that."

"Silk does? I'm not Silk, as I've explained several times. My name is Patera Horn-or rather just Horn, though I feel like an augur in these clothes. Now, where were we?"

"About you drinking the wine… About you drinking the wine, Patera."

He was tempted to insist she call him Horn, but this was not the moment for it. He nodded instead. "You say Silk does, and that accounts for the word quaff in the next section, `They feed; then quaff; and now (their hunger fled) sigh for their friends and mourn the dead.' With this it would appear that the god who speaks to us has moved from our present situation to prophesy. I will sacrifice for you, the god says, and satisfy my hunger with your bread and wine. After that, we will mourn dead friends. At present I have no idea who these friends are, but no doubt it will be made clear to us when the time comes. Have you friends who are no longer with us, Olivine?"

"I don't think… I don't think so."

"My adopted son, Krait, is dead. He may be meant. Or someone like my late friend Scleroderma. We'll see."

He looked at the book again. " `Nor cease their tears till each in slumber shares a sweet forgetfulness of human cares.' We will sleep then-so it appears. I know that you chems sleep at times, Olivine. Are you going to sleep tonight?"

"If you say… If you say to."

"Not I, but the gods. You should at least consider it. I will sleep, surely, if I can."

"My father told me to sleep while he was… My father told me to sleep while he was gone."

"But you didn't?"

"Over… Over there." She pointed to the window. "Where I could see… Where I could see out?"

"I didn't know you could sleep standing up."

"If I can… If I can lean. But I saw… But I saw you."

"In the street below. You have good eyes."

"I can't shut… I can't shut them." There were tears in the thick voice. "The… The rest?"

"You're right. It's my duty to explain it, not to gossip about sleeping habits." He looked down at the Writings once more, re-read the passage and closed the book. "This is by no means easy. Presumably it reflects the gods' concern for us. `Now far the night advances her gloomy reign, and setting stars roll down the azure plain: At the voice of Pas wild whirlwinds rise, and clouds and double darkness veil the skies.' "

"Stars… Stars, Patera?"

"Tiny lights in the night sky," he explained absently. "We have them on Blue. You have them here, too, in a sense; but you cannot see them because they're outside the whorl. This is a difficult passage, Olivine. Why this mention of stars, when our sacrifice is taking place in the Long Sun Whorl?"

She stared at him, and although he could not discern her expression he could feel her expectancy.

"I believe it is what is called a signature; that is, a sign by which the god who has favored us identifies himself. Most frequently, signatures take the form of an animal-a vulture for Hierax, for example, or a deer for Thelxiepeia."

"There weren't… There weren't any…"

"No, there weren't. No animal of any sort was mentioned."

He fell silent for almost half a minute, struggling with his conscience. "In honesty I must tell you that a real augur would say this passage was inspired by Pas. We have his image, to begin with; and when a god is mentioned by name, he or she is assumed to have inspired the passage. That's not invariably correct, however, and I don't believe it is in this case. The stars, which at first seem so out of place, are outside this whorl as I told you. As objects found outside it-and only outside it-they may well be signatures of the Outsider, as I feel quite sure they were in a dream I had long ago." He waited for her to protest, but she did not.